skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is being angry at nothing. It was publicized. The google version of the youtube app is better for everyone including the user.
I guess the question on my mind is- does it benefit rapgenius at all to contribute to any kind of open annotation? As we can see with twitter, if you're going to bet millions of dollars on a content distribution and consumption network, you're going to have to display ads at some point. In twitter's case, they have slowly and surely begun to limit things that do not contribute to the display of twitter's ads (third party apps and open api access).

With 15 million and more to pay back, rapgenius will need to focus on things that contribute to the display of rapgenius's ads. Rap music is pretty popular, but I think they're aiming higher and broader (I'm guessing there might be a non rap specific product called "genius" out there in a year or so).

I'm hoping that they find it beneficial to their goals to contribute to the open annotation effort as they move forward.
"Lithops", or stone plants, fascinate me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithops
Honest question: What value do these rankings provide to society? [1]

Ie. Practically what am I supposed to gather by the fact that Caltech is rated #1? Or Stockholm University #117? Should that mean I would benefit from attending Caltech over Stockholm U? Or do these rankings just help see what countries/states are research university superpowers (whatever benefit that brings -- e.g. increased international competition?)?

I'm sure universities love to see themselves ranked well as it could bring them more prestige and attract better/more students. However it's extremely confusing how universities that have extremely varied missions can be measured on the exact same metrics in the exact same way, and from that form a valuable "ranking" that actually has worth.

My understanding of the purpose of measuring is largely to increase feedback to stimulate growth and learning. Do these rankings help with this? I'm not sure.

Perhaps I would be more comfortable if they would rename their ranking or define it less generally. One step forward would be to possibly form categories (or acknowledge existing categories) for universities and have one ranking table per category.

[1] I found this in one of the articles on the site: "The world of higher education is changing, and the rankings help us to make sense of what is happening. These rankings were conceived to be much more than an annual beauty parade or marketing gimmick for university recruitment offices. We are delighted to continue to deliver what we promised we would."

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-ranki...
Most economists do not accept that direct government subsidy to businesses leads to an economically efficient outcome, even in cases of negative externalities. Many economists would say that Pigovian taxes or creation of markets in the externality are likely to be more efficient. Bottom line: market failure does not mean that government solutions are automatically better. Government failure exists too!
What? ITT technical institute and University of Phoenix are not listed on there.
Just bought one for our office. Absolutely love it :) Keep it up guys!
This is a real problem for 'internationally oriented' people. I don't do MS/Xbox, so cannot speak to that, but I do Android/Google, iOS/Apple, and Kindle/Amazon.

I have been living multinationally for the past several years and it is a serious hindrance on all three of these 'ecosystems'.

Apple seems the easiest to work with as long as you maintain an account and a credit card in every country you want to deal with. Their devices all support multiple accounts, albeit with significant inconvenience, and they do not disable features based on your geographical location.

Amazon is not as good, but I only use them for Kindle so it doesn't faze me as much and I just deal with having a US account.

Google is the worst of these three in my experience, because their digital restrictions and feature-disabling systems are mainly based on physical geographic location (which they sometimes get wrong), not the location of the linked credit card. This means, for instance, that I can buy a Google phone in San Francisco and not even be able to look up my order the next week when I am back in Tokyo. (The product isn't available here so you can't even see it--even in the purchase history section when logged into the account.)

All of these systems are horribly flawed from the multinational customer's perspective. But essentially, big corporate doesn't really give two shits about the minute percentage of users that live/work in more than one country, so I doubt this problem will get better.

In fact, I expect it to get worse as more companies copy Apple's platform-as-closed-monoculture concept (as e.g. Microsoft is doing).
Slashed Price of MINI Coupe and Roadster
MINI, a well-known brand among the race car lovers, has brought good news in for those who have wanted to be a MINI owner from a long lime. As the MINI cars are popular for the power under the feet MINI lovers can soon expect to own that speed in slightly above to $8000 price less.
I don't understand any of this diatribe. Various Apple vs Google business issues have been evident for months, and most people accept the fact that changes must be made. So Apple removes the YouTube App and you now download its replacement from the App Store. What's outrageous about that?

Isn't everyone a little tired of these articles using words like "disaster", "outrageous" etc etc. It's just a phone that runs little apps, folks!
I think deciding that learning and understanding is more important than pleasing markers and getting a qualification is one of the most important decisions you can make.

One of my favourite movies ever is a bollywood film on this topic. 3 Idiots. Here's a snippet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35sfBjmVWpU
OK, maybe some students do outsource their projects. This does not mean that hard working students who can prove themselves otherwise are ignored. To companies like Infosys, CTS etc. who actually indulge in mass recruiting and have pathetic interview standards, of course, this might make a difference. But to good companies how want to recruit good Engineers, projects on the resume can only aid in interview calls. A lack of knowledge would be apparent in an interview. While you explain the problem, you never make an attempt at finding or listing a solution for the same. But instead, you end your post with a rhetorical statement.

Analyzing this problem, I think it can be attributed to widespread plagiarism in engineering schools in India. In the US, plagiarism is dealt with severely and can even lead to expulsion. This forces Indian students who used to indulge in malpractices in their undergrad to put on their thinking hats for once and be creative, for the fear of expulsion(which would be a disaster after so much preparation). Thats when one realizes the consequences of ones action. Such a system should be enforced in colleges in India.
I'm guessing, but the culture clash might come from an intersection of "car factory" meets "startup mindset", with the latter introducing an against-all-odds urgency. If you want to put a rocket in space or create the first viable electric car company, you probably can't initially go home at 5pm. You're probably less forgiving of those that can't keep up with the insane pace.

Here's hoping it calms down, and that the people who helped make the vision a reality are well rewarded.
I'm in the same boat. Do you happen to live in the Bay Area?
Oh, really? That's the first I have heard of Apple using geographical location to disable features, rather than using the location that issued the credit card linked to the account.

Come to think of it, last year in Shanghai, I did buy a GPS map app for iPhone using my US app store account... is this something new (and lame) that Apple is doing, or did you mean something different?

EDIT: Oops, sorry, I guess I should have read your comment far enough to get to the second word where you clearly indicated you are talking about Android... :-p
Lol. I think he is frustrated. First you get frustrated, then you accept it, and then you laugh at people who are frustrated .. LOLOL.. Just kidding.

Kamaal, Do you get frustrated because you don't think you are paid as much as you should be? Or, that the business people shouldn't be paid as much as the technical guys? If it is the latter, there is no respite, and you should probably do what others do.

First of all, you are in your own country, and you are welcome to leave the job anytime you want. ANYTIME. If you think you are overworked you don't have to put up with it, you just move on. There is no shortage of software jobs in India, and if you are as technical as you say you are, you shouldn't have any problem finding one.

Secondly, are you an engineer because you like it, or you do it to satisfy your ego, or differentiate yourself, or because you worked so hard until now that you can't give up? If it is for any other reasons than the first one, take a good hard look at yourself. It probably is not worth being frustrated all your life for anything. Life is short, and you should not do disservice to yourself. Don't buy into the hype created by society for serving its own selfish reasons. Yeah, it is great if you invented an algorithm that solves a problem in half the time, but recognize that in itself it is meaningless to your life unless you enjoy it. Don't, please don't do it because everyone says so-and-so thing is great.

Thirdly, I don't know how you would do it, but please don't let others recognition of you define your happiness. Do it by keeping away from people who cause all the negativity or learn to ignore them. You are your own person, and you should do everything to serve yourself better and keep yourself happy.

PS: I am a desi living in the US from quite a while now. I felt the same frustration you feel now. It is quite a journey to get out of it, but you should not stay where you are

PPS: You are not responsible for the world. The world is a unjust place and is what it is. Learn to live with it. It is not going to be "your" problem in a few short years anyways.
It's a bit disappointing that a project which is supposed to show me something in "pure CSS" is hosted on a site which gives me a big warning/block that the site "doesn't work with out javascript, like at all".
It's a problem for Nintendo, believe it or not. My 13-year-old son saved up to buy a game now that we've relocated to Hungary - the chip wouldn't even load on his American 3DS. Insane. Fortunately he got store credit, but ... why in the world?
Yea, I'm a designer, I use chrome- you know why? The inspector is a lot better. The firefox inspector is sure sexy but it is simply not very powerful. Yea, there's firebug, but chrome has a very powerful set of tools built right in. I can amaze people by redesigning a page on the fly- as long as I don't accidently refresh.
I wondered that: does an unlock icon show that the door is unlocked, or that I can unlock it?
I disagree with much of what you wrote, but I rebuke you for giving credit to Xerox for the creation of the Internet.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/23/news/la-mo-who-inven...

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/23/...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=internet-pi...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/wsj-mangles-histo...

And most importantly:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57479781-93/no-credit-for-u...
No, thank you.

I'm 25 and I can honestly say that for all of us on Hacker News, Slashdot has been a part of all our lives, a huge one. I've checked Slashdot at least once every second day since 2000 (I'll admit more frequently in the past), and I couldn't have imagined the past decade without it.

It may not keep up with some of the better subreddits, Metafilter or Hacker News in many respects and I can feel its userbase aging when I read the comments... but...

It stands like a rock, and may it always.

I remember my being in high school, checking Slashdot on the school computers and telling other students about Wikipedia, their reaction being "anyone can just edit it?", in about 2001. Memories of the phosphorus on white school CRT with Windows NT 4.0 burning news of technology as it came along.

I will continue checking Slashdot for my fix of news just about every day, and may you find my IP in your access.log for years to come. A true verdant thou hast burnt in mine eyes and may it shine on brightly within them forever.
Incredible CSS Image Slider no JS
Davinci of the web !
New Nokia Lumia 920 Ad Making Fun Of IPhone 5.
To what, exactly?
Dear Venturebeat, John Koetsier:

I'm sorry I gave you clicks. Please accept this story flagging as an apology towards the greater discourse.
Intelligence in hiring
I think in the political discourse, pigovian taxes would be considered "government picking winners and losers" (specifically losers).

Also, the question isn't whether direct subsidies are more efficient than taxing externalities. The question is whether direct subsidies are more efficient than doing nothing (which is the only politically feasible alternative).
Sounds really good, but I can't tell what it actually does. I'm assuming you replicated some features of git with your own gui? Let's see a good description of what this is. I'm on my phone and don't want to watch your video that's too big for my screen. Just some friendly advice.

P.S. RIP cubicleninjas
> First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention was wrongly flagged by algorithms just after it aired

No it wasn't.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/09/05/michelle_...

There's always a delay between the end of a livestream and the point where you can watch the prerecorded video. In this case, YouTube merely displayed the wrong error message during that delay.
> Not to pick one side or the other, but Tesla was made possible by artificial means, not market demand.

But you did.

> And don't start with arguments about the internet - it was actually Xerox that largely made the internet (sic.) possible:

But you did: "Don't do X - X."

NIST is government funded. Are they also magically excluded from having done good things?
Quantum measurements leave Schrödinger's cat alive
Same here. I'm living in Quebec for the next few months, and I had to order the last Pokemon in Europe (and pay shipping, hurrah !) to be able to play.

What's the justification ? "Region dependant features" (sorry ? you have to lock the hardware instead of enabling/disabling features at runtime ?), and "parental access" (well, I'm over 18, and I allow me to play. It doesn't seem enough in the Nintendo world, however).

Really, region-lock sucks.
Happy 15th birthday! I posted as AC for the first year or two and sadly missed out on the "low UID" boat. I was 15 at the time of its launch.
> treating a 6'7 300# Samoan guy the same as a 5'3" female might not make sense for layout of equipment...

Well, my situation was a bit different as I was in a special forces unit. For one, we had no women.

>The ultra-badass thing to do was to pre-apply CAT tourniquets (loose) to all 4 limbs, so the operator could then tighten them when hit and continue in the fight.

We've had this practice, but when you have a tourniquet(properly tied, cutting off all flow) on a limb, you have little to no control over it (to test this, tie a tourniquet just above your bicep and try to open and close your hand when it has no pulse). The only thing you can do is use other limbs to make up for the lost one. Furthermore, if that limb is a leg (the thigh in particular), in order to fully cut off the flow, it is necessary to apply so much pressure so as to break the bone (which sucks, but is better than dying). Lastly, even if the situation were dire enough to warrant these measures, where would you place the tourniquet on the limb? This is a problem for a few reasons. For example, I dont know about your unit but in mine, anything on us gets beaten up a lot for various reasons; damage to the tourniquet would be likely and problematic. Furthermore, during an exercise, the amount of blood that flows through your muscles increases thereby expanding the size of the limb. This would cut off blood flow and inhibit performance if you had a loosely tied tourniquet on it. If you resize it to be larger, then it would slip and fall in times of inactivity. Lastly, and this might also be a difference between units, we arent allowed to wear any bright colors, reflective mattes, sharp contracting colores, or have anything on us which identifiably changes our shape so as to mitigate detection. As I said, when it comes to the equipment (especially the medical equipment) everything is boiled down to a science.

>It worked better for immediate response than relying just on direct pressure

This is true, but the problem is the loss of use of the limb. If you are in a situation where you absolutely need to move quickly, a direct pressure solution to slow the bleeding until you are in a relatively safe area where you can then apply a tourniquet is better. A lot of the decisions you have to make are a balancing act of speed versus safety.

>but then utterly hilarious when random people copied them without understanding

This is very true. The number one mistake I see people who havent been trained to use a tourniquet make is they tie it (however poorly) on the injury. You are supposed to tie it 4 fingers above the injury because veins are elastic and when severed they jump back into the body, so you need to account for that and tie it higher.

Sorry if I went on too much, I just really like that so much thought has been put into every decision that we take for granted; if only we knew.
Looks nice. Currently, I am quite happy writing my thesis in LyX [0], which outputs to various formats, including HTML.

I also have a script which periodically converts the source files from LyX to both HTML and PDF, then dumps them in the webroot of the Apache server running on my Uni computer. This folder has a .htaccess file which restricts access to my supervisors and myself using the Uni's LDAP server.

It works a treat for me.

[0] - http://www.lyx.org/
Taxing something in proportion to its external costs isn't picking a loser, it's levelling the playing field. OTOH, subsidizing particular manufacturers of solar panels or electric cars puts all other alternatives at a disadvantage.

BTW, you've failed to substantiate your claim that the market fails to pick efficient winners and losers. How would you even define "efficient" without appealing to the marketplace?
Are you a hacker? Do you like news? If you answered "yes" to both of these questions, then HNAA might be exactly what you're looking for!
Yet another win for piracy. It's amusing to hear people complain about all these things. It doesn't matter what country I'm in, my private torrent site functions without any problems.
It is removing features from a phone people have already bought. Sure, we know to just go to the App store and get the new one, but my parents definitely wouldn't.

I sure am glad I don't work in telco any more and don't have to deal with customers complaining about it. It was bad enough when the Android Market switched to Google Play, even with a pop-up information screen when launching before the switch.
Though it's common, if a students wants to learn he generally won't do it. I passed my engineering from one of the not so known college in India and this is pretty common there.

I know a guy who was quite dedicated with his project and though he didn't get good marks ( project )or awesome campus placement, he got into AMD later as a new grad. ( w.r.t placement ).

Our team did some work on compiler ( source to source translation ) which is pretty unknown in my college and even the guys who make project for cash won't take it as they prefer easy cash :P

At the end it all depends whether the guy has a hungry mind or chooses the easy path.
The situation in Australia is hardly any different. http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/uni-cheats-...
Came here to see the usual PR reps frantically posting their same old defenses of everything Apple. Wasn't disappointed!

Deleting installed software without permission, notification, or explanation? Definitely not OK! Would never know that on any forum for discussion though where even the most obviously problematic Apple practice must be defended at any cost, and those who disagree silenced.
We did our weekly hackathon this week and for some reason chose J as our language of choice . . . we watched this afterwards and laughed maniacally. We all want APL keyboards now.
> If the government really wants to help out with energy, it should loosen environmental restrictions. I am as much a supporter of green tech and protecting the environment...

It's not about protecting the environment in the abstract. It's about who bears the costs of industrial activity. Loosening environmental reactions doesn't reduce costs, it shifts costs from polluters to the general public, particularly to the poorest people.

Polluting the air you breathe is no different than any other injury--if the government has any function it is to protect your bodily integrity. It is a failure of organized society when a company can profit by physically hurting you, and it's economically inefficient to allow polluting industries to shift the inherent costs of their activity onto other people. It causes companies to pick the technologies that have the most costs that can be passed to other people, not the technologies that are the most absolutely efficient.

The oil, coal, etc, industries were made possible by the intervention of government. Did you know that in the 1600s in American law pollution was basically illegal? E.g. if water ran through your property, it had to leave as clean as it went in. Allowing people to pollute during the industrial revolution was actually a tremendous government subsidy of industry.
On the plus side, projects like Windows Phone and Xbox show that Microsoft has the money to burn while they work out a way to be profitable (and is prepared to do that). I'm concerned that Spotify will run out of money soon.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. What I care about is how my asset does over the long run. If it goes up 10% today and down 10% tomorrow, I really don't care.
Let's face it, the main purpose of such rankings is to provide a pecking order for wider society to latch onto. Rankings factor into prestige, which factors into graduates' signalling for employment, which helps determine how well they can compete for the more desired jobs in society. Sure, most of the top institutions provide excellent learning experiences in themselves, but I'd guess the signalling effect of a top school supplies a major portion of the grad's desirability as an employee (especially when the hirers are from elite schools' old boys clubs themselves).

Furthermore, prestigious universities with powerful alumni networks provide informational advantages, and alumni probably favor fellow alumni in business and recruitment. (That reminds me, maybe I should start reconnecting with college mates to look for a job...)

I don't think the above is cynical - I think it's just realistic.
Don't let a few postings online deter you from applying to work for a company that you find intriguing. Just ignore the naysayers and give it a shot. That's the only way of finding out if you would enjoying being a part of something. It's a startup pushing the boundaries of technology within two industries, there's going to be a few sleepless nights, but in the long run you will definitely be part of something massive, which could evidently change humanity as we know it.
Ample SDK does that, kinda-sorta -- http://www.amplesdk.com/about/compatibility/
And if you do it right it doesn't leave a paper trail. I've always suspected insider trading is the norm, and the careless people get caught.
He specifically mentions the 9-month to 6-month escrow switch in the post; are you talking about something different?